It has been now eleven years since the arrack.I am not going to use the "r" word because i cannot face it. I am still in denial. I have built wall after wall to protect what is left and now no one can get in and i cannot get out.

I look in the mirror and i do not recognise who is looking back. I am consumed with anger and hate. I hate myself.I use solvents to escape the world but come roud back into the world.

I am no good at expressing myself on an emotional level and find it difficult to respond emotionally to other people, be it sad or whatever. I dont know what else to say

I am no longer a man.. that all died yearsago.

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you dont see me. i am not really here. Its my fault.. all of it. I am to blame and no one else.

It took me nineteen years before I could use that word. I still back away from time to time from it.

From what you wrote I wonder if you are saying you feel you are trapped? Sometimes our protective modes can work against us as well as for us. Is the anger and hatred for the abuser(s) or for you? You said your hated yourself - do you hate the one(s) who hurt you too?

I think you expressed yourself very well here. And I understand about not recognizing yourself. I have stood in front of the mirror wondering where I went and who the guy in front of me was. I still do that at times.

Making myself stand in front of the mirror and talk out how I felt towards myself helped a lot. A guy here kept encouraging me to do that and he was so right. As painful as it was - and still is - it helped me make some peace with myself.

I hear your pain--you have a lot of defenses, but admit that they exist and that you try to escape by getting high.

Alcohol was my BEST friend and only true love for a long time-then the day came I knew it would only pave the way to death, and that I needed help to face my life and my past. SO I asked for help and found people I could trust who were safe and offered a real way out. They were examples of people in recovery and healing.

I hope you can know that this is possible and it is better than isolating and numbing. I know that you have more to offer and more to live, I am here for you.

Always, man.

Your brother,

Jamie

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We have to take responsibility for what we're not responsible for.

You have said a lot and expressed your emotions well. As to the “R” word, as Prisoner expressed, I also took years to get to a place where I could understand the meaning of the word and who to blame for its existence in my life.

Duncan, anytime you want to use me rather than solvents to escape, please - if you feel comfortable - PM me anytime. I have found that dealing with the anger and hate, including self-hate, with the help of other men who “know” is healing. You are not alone in this lonely struggle, Earlybird

I hate myself for failing to defend myself from the attack. It plays over and over in my mind everyday.. never stopping. yes. I hate them, they destroyed the last part of my human self. The man that i once was is gone.

I read articles on the "r" subject but it does not make me feel any better. I hate it all. It brings me to tears and i just draw it all back in. I get angry..... They laughed as they attacked me.. they hurt me........ i tried counselling once but i cannot face it. I cannot say the "r" word. i feel ashamed, guilty...

I dont know who i am anymore. I try and get by day by day.. blocking it out.. i tell everyone that i am fine.. but deep down i am not. I feel like crying as i type this out but i hold it all in. someone once sadi to me "just get over it!!!!you are a man!!!". I tried that.. did not work. I try and shut my emotions down and it gets difficult.

I am scared of men. even guys at work who i have known for a long time. My borders are closed to people who try and enter. I cannot tear down te walls that i have built its too difficult to do.

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you dont see me. i am not really here. Its my fault.. all of it. I am to blame and no one else.

I blamed myself for the assault for over nineteen years. I would be lying if I said that at times I still struggle with it. But I can also honestly say that I find myself more and more seeing that it was not my fault. True, I was a grown man in my late twenties. But I also was ovepowered by two men who had weapons. I was outnumbered and outgunned by them. You had multiple assailants too - it does not diminish who you are as a person or as a man. You were a victim when you were attacked and the best thing you could do is what you did and that is you survived what they put you through. I do not know how old you were when this was done to you but just because you were an adult does not diminish their evil or their culpability. They are guilty and you are competely innocent.

I have played over my assault almost every day for over nineteen years. It it still enters my mind every day but now with the knowledge - the truth - that I was innocent of anything that night.

I am working on discovering myself at that age again. I know that I buried him out of anger and shame. I blamed him for what happened and I had a list of why it was his fault. I look at that list and I can see how I was dressed, my physical appearance, my decision to stop to wash my car and my naive ways were not my fault I was assaulted. These were just incidentals to the night. The blame is on the deviants who saw me and thought of the cruel thigns they could do to me. I do not know how much of him I will get back but know I cannot spend the rest of my life trying to get back to then.

It is fine that you could not face this in therapy yet. I wasted two hospital stays and several great therapists while I lied to myself and to them. Only with the last one was I able to open up and tell the whole story. That was just sixteen months ago.

Whoever said those horrible words of getting over it was wrong. Your gender has nothing to do with the actions of your assailants. They were sick and twisted animals. I do not know the circumstances of your assault but I hope you are not using them to build a case against yourself. I fear you are by reading your tag line. You did nothing wrong. You did something right because you lived through that horrible experience.

I hope you keep putting these thoughts and emotions out here. No one has the right to tell you to get over it and move on. However you feel then just say it. We are here to support you and offer our own experiences and maybe little insight.

Being a man does not negate anything that anyone would say to another victim/survivor of abuse or assault. We deserver the same consideration that we would give a man or woman who is CSA or a woman who was assualted as an adult. You deserve that. Our gender and our age should not enter into it. Especially in our own minds.

I am so sorry for what you have gone through and still struggling with even now.

I’d like, once again, to echo Prisoner’s words. I know I needed to hear it over and over by different men that the assault was not my or your fault. Duncan you are not in any way to blame. A person cannot always completely protect themselves from all dangers and evils. You are a man, one that has been deeply injured. You are a man who is reaching out to other men who grasp the issues. (We know there is no simple method or plan the will “get us over it). We are each on a pitted road full of dead ends but there is hope for each of us. You are doing the right thing by being here and talking with us about the assault. I want to commend you are your strength in not sidestepping the issue. I’m impressed and wished I done it as quickly as you have done. We are all here as a support with and for you, Earlybird

Duncan, in a way I can relate to everything you are saying here. All the feelings and emotions, thoughts, anger, all of that is deep within me too, and like you, I can't express it so I just shut it down.

The blame, the shame, the constantly wondering why, thinking back to figure out what you could have or should have done differently and basically feeling trapped there. Your post and each reply after has brought tears to my eyes for the first time in a long time and I thank you for that.

I can say with 100% certainty that you are not alone and it was not your fault.

The "R" word?? Hate it. I've been in therapy for two years and it was one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome. I preferred "assault". It didn't sound as harsh.

Th "R" word couldn't apply to me. That word was reserved for a woman, or maybe for someone weaker. I was never weak, always strong, or at least I thought I was. At least physically. Turns out that being strong didn't mean macho, or any of that. I was the weak one for not admitting to myself what happened.

For too long I also shut down. I distanced myself from everybody, at least emotionally. On the outside I was a friendly, happy, athletic guy. Inside was a mess. I shut down emotions, true colors, hurt feelings, and all that. I could talk weather, politics, sports, and any other safe topic. But I could never talk about the way I felt about anything. And I could certainly never talk about me. And it all goes back to the assault, the "R" word.

I think as adults, we somehow feel much more responsible for what happened to us. If we are assaulted as children (and unfortunately I had that happen too), there is a certain degree of innocence we have, and there is so much more out of our control. As an adult I felt more at fault for what happened than I did as a child.

I remember my teachers, coaches, all adults drilling into my head that, "You are responsible for everything you do." "You are accountable for all your actions." And so when I was assaulted, what did I think? Who was responsible? ME. And it took me a long time, and a lot of hurt feelings and wasted withdrawals from my real self to figure it out.

No, it wasn't my fault. I am responsible for the things I do, but not for the things done TO ME. Once you get that, the road gets a little easier. Never, ever blame yourself.

That is an interesting spin you put on this. I had not really thought of how it was drilled in my head that I was responsible for the course of my life. That I have allowed that to bleed over into my assault. I mean I thought it was my own voice saying it - but in fact I have had a chorus.

My first semester of college my parents helped me. But then my dad fell ill and I was on my own to pay for it all. A lot then went to me to take care of and I was grown at that point. I knew it was up to me to make it or I would not at all. And I became resourceful and was able to overcome, or slide out of, any situation. Until that one night.

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